I raced in a North Yorkshire Mountain Bike Orienteering (NYMBO) event at the weekend. These are a series of relaxed and well organised events.
Mountain bike orienteering is great fun. Basically you get a set time to reach as many controls as you can to score the most points. The route and navigation is up to you. You get ride in a new area and have an incentive to really push yourself.
This event was held in the Howardian Hills north of York. The area is a great mix of quiet roads and singletrack. It made for a great venue.
Over 4 hours I rode 52km and climbed 800m. That’s about my limit. To put that into perspective the winner climbed 950m and rode 80km. That’s an average of 20km/hr which is amazing.
The riding was great fun, although the mud seemed to stick to everything. At one stage I had to stop to get the 5kg of accumulated mud off my wheels.
As far as kit is concerned the couple of “must haves” were:
1)A Miry Mapboard. These are expensive but well worth the investment if you regularly do MBO. (Mountain Bike orienteering)
2) My Marmot Driclime windshirt again was the perfect top. These simply are the most versatile windshirts going. They keep the wind away and are very breathable. I use mine now for skiing, ski touring, walking and biking.
The next event is 17th April in Broxa forest in North Yorkshire. For further info see the NYMBO website.
Jake